Opinion/Satire: Slavery Was a Good Thing, Honest. It Just Took Us a While to Figure it Out. Thanks, Gov. DeSantis

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Some things take time to seep in. Somebody tells us something cool on Tuesday and wham! We don’t get it until Saturday night. It happens all the time. But at least we eventually get it, right?

Apparently, there’s been this hidden trove of information about our history with slavery and we just weren’t seeing it. Never had that hand-to-the-forehead moment when it all clicks.

Here most of us thought that slavery was a blight on America’s History. A saga, right up with the elimination of Native Americans, and come to find out - no - there are actually some really good things that happened in between the beatings and kidnappings and incarceration of people not of this country - all in the name of profit.

We knew that slavery was the “machine” upon which the South’s agricultural success rode. We knew that the standard of living in the South was high and that people, white people, lived well, ate well, dressed well, and knew how to have fun. Watch Gone with the Wind.

It’s not in the history books but in the journals of all the families who owned plantations and then factories and then entire industries and their stories, their legacies have been carefully curated throughout the years and remembered in the form of statues, and great endowments to colleges and universities that honor them.

But apparently, according to the Florida State Board of Education, slavery was also an excellent training ground for thousands of artisans who walked away - well, some of them, from slavery and were able to open their own businesses. As a blacksmith, farrier, farmer, and oodles of other interesting trades that many people, never had the opportunity to apprentice for.

This refers to the line in Florida's new policy that states - that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Of course, as with all things in life, there are ups and down. Those that want a degree from a good college must work long hours and multiple jobs to pay for the tuition. Consider this similar to what the slaves had to do. They worked sunrise to sunset in abominable conditions, with poor diets, no medical treatment, no days off, and certainly no hope of it changing.

But as the saying goes: If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.

I guess there were some upsides to slavery, we just weren’t looking at it like the folks in Florida were.

It prepared them for anything that they might encounter in the future, for nothing would ever be as harsh and inhumane. So, there was that advantage.

It made them mentally tough and as the world entered the industrial age where machines came first and people second, they would be able to endure these drastic shifts in society without skipping a beat.

And they learned how to survive on very little, which apparently is something those folks in the Sunshine State thought was very industrious.

But not every GOP member supports this policy. US Senator Tim Scot (SC) had this to say about Florida's new curriculum:

“What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating,” Scott, the sole Black Republican in the Senate, told reporters on Thursday after a town hall in Ankeny. “So I would hope that every person in our country — and certainly running for president — would appreciate that.”

“People have bad days,” Scott added. “Sometimes they regret what they say. And we should ask them again to clarify their positions.”

https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-scott-desantis-slavery-school-curriculum-bbda4260ed074e699bb3f598b8547338https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/07/27/u-s-sen-tim-scott-calls-for-end-of-doj-weaponization-criticizes-florida-black-history-curriculum/

And at the end of the day, Florida is teaching the rest of the country how to deal with slavery - just change the optics.

It wasn’t imprisonment - it was intense training - think boot camps for the impoverished.

It wasn’t cruel - after all, they were fed and housed and woke up every day with a job waiting for them. Something many Americans are looking for nowadays.

And it wasn’t without choices as some might suggest - apparently some chose to remain a slave. Considering the options at the time, like death, this seemed pretty attractive.

Florida is also teaching us that reality is like playdough. It only hardens into something permanent if you stop changing it.

No, we should all take a moment and thank those folks in Florida for their innovative ways of looking at slavery, sex, education, and people in general.

No doubt something to be learned there.